Destructive Invasive Beetle Creeps Closer to NH

The Emerald Ash Borer, an invasive Asian beetle that has killed millions of Ash trees in the Great Lakes region, is creeping closer to New Hampshire.

This week an Emerald Ash Borer infestation was found in the Berkshires in Western Massachusetts. The pest has spread from Michigan, through the Mid-Atlantic region, to upstate New York and Connecticut.

Kyle Lombard with the division of Forested Lands says, on its own the ash borer moves very slowly.

Lombard: How it moves quickly is in firewood from somebody going camping in another state, or in logs that are being shipped long distance.

Lombard says, apart from trying to enforce the out-of-state firewood ban, the only way to slow the spread of the insect is to catch infestations early.

Lombard: If you go outside, and you say well that’s odd that there’s such a large number of woodpeckers working on a small number of ash trees. That’s pretty unusual and it usually means that there’s some insect infestation in those trees.

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New Hampshire foresters are closely watching the movements of an exotic beetle known as the Emerald Ash Borer. Just last month the U-S Forest Service announced that for the first time, the beetle has been found east of the Hudson river. That’s just ninety miles from the New Hampshire border. The Emerald Ash Borer first appeared in North America ten years ago, and has killed millions of ash trees in several mid-Atlantic and Midwestern states, as well as Canada. To find out whether or not the beetle poses a threat to the Granite State, we turn to Kyle Lombard. He’s the Forest Health Prog

A study from the US Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service shows that New Hampshire is the most forested of the 48 contiguous states. According to the USDA study 88.9 percent of New Hampshire is covered by trees, beating out neighboring states Maine at 83.1 percent and Vermont at 81.5

The study’s lead author David Nowak says evaluators looked over 80,000 points dropped randomly onto satellite photos from around 2005 to complete the study.

Threats to forest health from three exotic insect pests including Hemlock Wooly Adelgid, Asian Longhorn Beetle and Emerald Ash Borer loom large over the vast forests of NH. The veritable insect rogues gallery is at our doorstep after killing trees in nearby states.